The object and methods of Composite Portraiture will be best explained by the following extracts from memoirs describing its successive stages, published in 1878, 1879, and 1881 respectively:--

I. PORTRAITS, MADE BY COMBINING THOSE OF MANY DIFFERENT PERSONS INTO A SINGLE RESULTANT FIGURE.

[Extract from Memoir read before the Anthropological Institute, in 1878.]

I submit to the Anthropological Institute my first results in carrying out a process that I suggested last August [1877] in my presidential address to the Anthropological Subsection of the British Association at Plymouth, in the following words:--

"Having obtained drawings or photographs of several persons alike in most respects, but differing in minor details, what sure method is there of extracting the typical characteristics from them? I may mention a plan which had occurred both to Mr. Herbert Spencer and myself, the principle of which is to superimpose optically the various drawings, and to accept the aggregate result. Mr. Spencer suggested to me in conversation that the drawings reduced to the same scale might be traced on separate pieces of transparent paper and secured one upon another, and then held between the eye and the light. I have attempted this with some success. My own idea was to throw faint images of the several portraits, in succession, upon the same sensitised photographic plate. I may add that it is perfectly easy to superimpose optically two portraits by means of a stereoscope, and that a person who is used to handle instruments will find a common double eyeglass fitted with stereoscopic lenses to be almost as effectual and far handier than the boxes sold in shops."

Mr. Spencer, as he informed me, had actually devised an instrument, many years ago, for tracing mechanically, longitudinal, transverse, and horizontal sections of heads on transparent paper, intending to superimpose them, and to obtain an average result by transmitted light.

Since my address was published, I have caused trials to be made, and have found, as a matter of fact, that the photographic process of which I there spoke enables us to obtain with mechanical precision a generalised picture; one that represents no man in particular, but portrays an imaginary figure possessing the average features of any given group of men. These ideal faces have a surprising air of reality. Nobody who glanced at one of them for the first time would doubt its being the likeness of a living person, yet, as I have said, it is no such thing; it is the portrait of a type and not of an individual.

I begin by collecting photographs of the persons with whom I propose to deal. They must be similar in attitude and size, but no exactness is necessary in either of these respects. Then, by a simple contrivance, I make two pinholes in each of them, to enable me to hang them up one in front of the other, like a pack of cards, upon the same pair of pins, in such a way that the eyes of all the portraits shall be as nearly as possible superimposed; in which case the remainder of the features will also be superimposed nearly enough. These pinholes correspond to what are technically known to printers as "register marks."

Preparing for Composite Imagery

They are easily made: A slip of brass or card has an aperture cut out of its middle, and threads are stretched from opposite sides, making a cross.[22] Two small holes are drilled in the plate, one on either side of the aperture. The slip of brass is laid on the portrait with the aperture over its face. It is turned about until one of the cross threads cuts the pupils of both the eyes, and it is further adjusted until the other thread divides the interval between the pupils in two equal parts. Then it is held firmly, and a prick is made through each of the holes.

[Footnote 22: I am indebted for the woodcuts to the Editor of Nature, in which journal this memoir first appeared.]

The portraits being thus arranged, a photographic camera is directed upon them. Suppose there are eight portraits in the pack, and that under existing circumstances it would require an exposure of eighty seconds to give an exact photographic copy of any one of them. The general principle of proceeding is this, subject in practice to some variations of detail, depending on the different brightness of the several portraits. We throw the image of each of the eight portraits in turn upon the same part of the sensitised plate for ten seconds. Thus, portrait No. 1 is in the front of the pack; we take the cap off the object glass of the camera for ten seconds, and afterwards replace it. We then remove No. 1 from the pins, and No. 2 appears in the front; we take off the cap a second time for ten seconds, and again replace it. Next we remove No. 2, and No. 3 appears in the front, which we treat as its predecessors, and so we go on to the last of the pack.

Making the Multiple Exposures

The sensitised plate will now have had its total exposure of eighty seconds; it is then developed, and the print taken from it is the generalised picture of which I speak. It is a composite of eight component portraits. Those of its outlines are sharpest and darkest that are common to the largest number of the components; the purely individual peculiarities leave little or no visible trace. The latter being necessarily disposed equally on both sides of the average, the outline of the composite is the average of all the components. It is a band and not a fine line, because the outlines of the components are seldom exactly superimposed. The band will be darkest in its middle whenever the component portraits have the same general type of features, and its breadth, or amount of blur, will measure the tendency of the components to deviate from the common type. This is so for the very same reason that the shot-marks on a target are more thickly disposed near the bull's-eye than away from it, and in a greater degree as the marksmen are more skilful. All that has been said of the outlines is equally true as regards the shadows; the result being that the composite represents an averaged figure, whose lineaments have been softly drawn. The eyes come out with appropriate distinctness, owing to the mechanical conditions under which the components are hung.

A composite portrait represents the picture that would rise before the mind's eye of a man who had the gift of pictorial imagination in an exalted degree. But the imaginative power even of the highest artists is far from precise, and is so apt to be biassed by special cases that may have struck their fancies, that no two artists agree in any of their typical forms. The merit of the photographic composite is its mechanical precision, being subject to no errors beyond those incidental to all photographic productions.

I submit several composites made for me by Mr. H. Reynolds. The first set of portraits are those of criminals convicted of murder, manslaughter, or robbery accompanied with violence. It will be observed that the features of the composites are much better looking than those of the components. The special villainous irregularities in the latter have disappeared, and the common humanity that underlies them has prevailed. They represent, not the criminal, but the man who is liable to fall into crime. All composites are better looking than their components, because the averaged portrait of many persons is free from the irregularities that variously blemish the looks of each of them.

I selected these for my first trials because I happened to possess a large collection of photographs of criminals, through the kindness of Sir Edmund Du Cane, the Director-General of Prisons, for the purpose of investigating criminal types. They were peculiarly adapted to my present purpose, being all made of about the same size, and taken in much the same attitudes. It was while endeavouring to elicit the principal criminal types by methods of optical superimposition of the portraits, such as I had frequently employed with maps and meteorological traces,[23] that the idea of composite figures first occurred to me.

[Footnote 23: Conference at the Loan Exhibition of Scientific Instruments, 1878. Chapman and Hall. Physical Geography Section, p. 312, On Means of Combining Various Data in Maps and Diagrams, by Francis Galton, F.R.S.]

The other set of composites are made from pairs of components. They are selected to show the extraordinary facility of combining almost any two faces whose proportions are in any way similar.

It will, I am sure, surprise most persons to see how well defined these composites are. When we deal with faces of the same type, the points of similarity far outnumber those of dissimilarity, and there is a much greater resemblance between faces generally than we who turn our attention to individual differences are apt to appreciate. A traveller on his first arrival among people of a race very different to his own thinks them closely alike, and a Hindu has much difficulty in distinguishing one Englishman from another.

The fairness with which photographic composites represent their components is shown by six of the specimens. I wished to learn whether the order in which the components were photographed made any material difference in the result, so I had three of the portraits arranged successively in each of their six possible combinations. It will be observed that four at least of the six composites are closely alike. I should say that in each of this set (which was made by the wet process) the last of the three components was always allowed a longer exposure than the second, and the second than the first, but it is found better to allow an equal time to all of them.

Composite Portrait (3 subjects)

The accompanying woodcut is as fair a representation of one of the composites as is practicable in ordinary printing. It was photographically transferred to the wood, and the engraver has used his best endeavour to translate the shades into line engraving. This composite is made out of only three components, and its threefold origin is to be traced in the ears, and in the buttons to the vest. To the best of my judgment, the original photograph is a very exact average of its components; not one feature in it appears identical with that of any one of them, but it contains a resemblance to all, and is not more like to one of them than to another. However, the judgment of the wood engraver is different. His rendering of the composite has made it exactly like one of its components, which it must be borne in mind he had never seen. It is just as though an artist drawing a child had produced a portrait closely resembling its deceased father, having overlooked an equally strong likeness to its deceased mother, which was apparent to its relatives. This is to me a most striking proof that the composite is a true combination.

The stereoscope, as I stated last August in my address at Plymouth, affords a very easy method of optically superimposing two portraits, and I have much pleasure in quoting the following letter, pointing out this fact as well as some other conclusions to which I also had arrived. The letter was kindly forwarded to me by Mr. Darwin; it is dated last November, and was written to him by Mr. A.L. Austin, from New Zealand, thus affording another of the many curious instances of two persons being independently engaged in the same novel inquiry at nearly the same time, and coming to similar results:--

INVERCARGILL, NEW ZEALAND, November 6th, 1877.

To CHARLES DARWIN, Esq.

SIR,--Although a perfect stranger to you, and living on the reverse side of the globe, I have taken the liberty of writing to you on a small discovery I have made in binocular vision in the stereoscope. I find by taking two ordinary carre-de-visite photos of two different persons' faces, the portraits being about the same sizes, and looking about the same direction, and placing them in a stereoscope, the faces blend into one in a most remarkable manner, producing in the case of some ladies' portraits, in every instance, a decided improvement in beauty. The pictures were not taken in a binocular camera, and therefore do not stand out well, but by moving one or both until the eyes coincide in the stereoscope the pictures blend perfectly. If taken in a binocular camera for the purpose, each person being taken on one half of the negative, I am sure the results would be still more striking. Perhaps something might be made of this in regard to the expression of emotions in man and the lower animals, etc. I have not time or opportunities to make experiments, but it seems to me something might be made of this by photographing the faces of different animals, different races of mankind, etc. I think a stereoscopic view of one of the ape tribe and some low-caste human face would make a very curious mixture; also in the matter of crossing of animals and the resulting offspring. It seems to me something also might result in photos of husband and wife and children, etc. In any case, the results are curious, if it leads to nothing else. Should this come to anything you will no doubt acknowledge myself as suggesting the experiment, and perhaps send me some of the results. If not likely to come to anything, a reply would much oblige me.

Yours very truly, A.L. AUSTIN, C.E., F.R.A.S."

Dr. Carpenter informs me that the late Mr. Appold, the mechanician, used to combine two portraits of himself under the stereoscope. The one had been taken with an assumed stern expression, the other with a smile, and this combination produced a curious and effective blending of the two.

Convenient as the stereoscope is, owing to its accessibility, for determining whether any two portraits are suitable in size and attitude to form a good composite, it is nevertheless a makeshift and imperfect way of attaining the required result. It cannot of itself combine two images; it can only place them so that the office of attempting to combine them may be undertaken by the brain. Now the two separate impressions received by the brain through the stereoscope do not seem to me to be relatively constant in their vividness, but sometimes the image seen by the left eye prevails over that seen by the right, and vice versÂ. All the other instruments I am about to describe accomplish that which the stereoscope fails to do; they create true optical combinations. As regards other points in Mr. Austin's letter, I cannot think that the use of a binocular camera for taking the two portraits intended to be combined into one by the stereoscope would be of importance. All that is wanted is that the portraits should be nearly of the same size. In every other respect I cordially agree with Mr. Austin.

The best instrument I have as yet contrived and used for optical superimposition is a "double-image prism" of Iceland spar (see Fig., p. 228), formerly procured for me by the late Mr. Tisley, optician, Brompton Road. They have a clear aperture of a square, half an inch in the side, and when held at right angles to the line of sight will separate the ordinary and extraordinary images to the amount of two inches, when the object viewed is held at seventeen inches from the eye. This is quite sufficient for working with carte-de-visite portraits. One image is quite achromatic, the other shows a little colour. The divergence may be varied and adjusted by inclining the prism to the line of sight. By its means the ordinary image of one component is thrown upon the extraordinary image of the other, and the composite may be viewed by the naked eye, or through a lens of long focus, or through an opera-glass (a telescope is not so good) fitted with a sufficiently long draw-tube to see an object at that short distance with distinctness. Portraits of somewhat different sizes may be combined by placing the larger one farther from the eye, and a long face may be fitted to a short one by inclining and foreshortening the former. The slight fault of focus thereby occasioned produces little or no sensible ill effect on the appearance of the composite.

The front, or the profile, faces of two living persons sitting side by side or one behind the other, can be easily superimposed by a double-image prism. Two such prisms set one behind the other can be made to give four images of equal brightness, occupying the four corners of a rhombus whose acute angles are 45°. Three prisms will give eight images, but this is practically not a good combination; the images fail in distinctness, and are too near together for use. Again, each lens of a stereoscope of long focus can have one or a pair of these prisms attached to it, and four or eight images may be thus combined.

Another instrument I have made consists of a piece of glass inclined at a very acute angle to the line of sight, and of a mirror beyond it, also inclined, but in the opposite direction to the line of sight. Two rays of light will therefore reach the eye from each point of the glass; the one has been reflected from its surface, and the other has been first reflected from the mirror, and then transmitted through the glass. The glass used should be extremely thin, to avoid the blur due to double reflections; it may be a selected piece from those made to cover microscopic specimens. The principle of the instrument may be yet further developed by interposing additional pieces of glass, successively less inclined to the line of sight, and each reflecting a different portrait.

Another Portrait Superposition Machine

Fig. 1 shows the simple apparatus which carries the prism and on which the photograph is mounted. The former is set in a round box which can be rotated in the ring at the end of the arm and can be clamped when adjusted. The arm can be rotated and can also be pulled out or in if desired, and clamped. The floor of the instrument is overlaid with cork covered with black cloth, on which the components can easily be fixed by drawing-pins. When using it, one portrait is pinned down and the other is moved near to it, overlapping its margin if necessary, until the eye looking through the prism sees the required combination; then the second portrait is pinned down also. It may now receive its register-marks from needles fixed in a hinged arm, and this is a more generally applicable method than the plan with cross threads, already described, as any desired feature--the nose, the ear, or the hand, may thus be selected for composite purposes. Let A, B, C, ... Y, Z, be the components. A is pinned down, and B, C, ... Y, Z, are successfully combined with A, and registered. Then before removing Z, take away A and substitute any other of the already registered portraits, say B, by combining it with Z; lastly, remove Z and substitute A by combining it with B, and register it. Fig. 2 shows one of three similarly jointed arms, which clamp on to the vertical covered with cork and cloth, and the other carries Fig. 3, which is a frame having lenses of different powers set into it, and on which, or on the third frame, a small mirror inclined at 45º may be laid. When a portrait requires foreshortening it can be pinned on one of these frames and be inclined to the line of sight; when it is smaller than its fellow it can be brought nearer to the eye and an appropriate lens interposed; when a right-sided profile has to be combined with a left-handed one, it must be pinned on one of the frames and viewed by reflection from the mirror in the other. The apparatus I have drawn is roughly made, and being chiefly of wood is rather clumsy, but it acts well.

I have tried many other plans; indeed the possible methods of optically superimposing two or more images are very numerous. Thus I have used a sextant (with its telescope attached); also strips of mirrors placed at different angles, their several reflections being simultaneously viewed through a telescope. I have also used a divided lens, like two stereoscopic lenses brought close together, in front of the object glass of a telescope.

II. GENERIC IMAGES.

[Extract from Proceedings Royal Institution, 25th April 1879]

Our general impressions are founded upon blended memories, and these latter will be the chief topic of the present discourse. An analogy will be pointed out between these and the blended portraits first described by myself a year ago under the name of "Composite Portraits," and specimens of the latter will be exhibited.

The physiological basis of memory is simple enough in its broad outlines. Whenever any group of brain elements has been excited by a sense impression, it becomes, so to speak, tender, and liable to be easily thrown again into a similar state of excitement. If the new cause of excitement differs from the original one, a memory is the result. Whenever a single cause throws different groups of brain elements simultaneously into excitement, the result must be a blended memory.

We are familiar with the fact that faint memories are very apt to become confused. Thus some picture of mountain and lake in a country which we have never visited, often recalls a vague sense of identity with much we have seen elsewhere. Our recollections cannot be disentangled, though general resemblances are recognised. It is also a fact that the memories of persons who have great powers of visualising, that is, of seeing well-defined images in the mind's eye, are no less capable of being blended together. Artists are, as a class, possessed of the visualising power in a high degree, and they are at the same time pre-eminently distinguished by their gifts of generalisation. They are of all men the most capable of producing forms that are not copies of any individual, but represent the characteristic features of classes.

There is then, no doubt, from whatever side the subject of memory is approached, whether from the material or from the mental, and, in the latter case, whether we examine the experiences of those in whom the visualising faculty is faint or in whom it is strong, that the brain has the capacity of blending memories together. Neither can there be any doubt that general impressions are faint and perhaps faulty editions of blended memories. They are subject to errors of their own, and they inherit all those to which the memories are themselves liable.

Specimens of blended portraits will now be exhibited; these might, with more propriety, be named, according to the happy phrase of Professor Huxley, "generic" portraits. The word generic presupposes a genus, that is to say, a collection of individuals who have much in common, and among whom medium characteristics are very much more frequent than extreme ones. The same idea is sometimes expressed by the word "typical," which was much used by Quetelet, who was the first to give it a rigorous interpretation, and whose idea of a type lies at the basis of his statistical views. No statistician dreams of combining objects into the same generic group that do not cluster towards a common centre; no more should we attempt to compose generic portraits out of heterogeneous elements, for if we do so the result is monstrous and meaningless.

It might be expected that when many different portraits are fused into a single one, the result would be a mere smudge. Such, however, is by no means the case, under the conditions just laid down, of a great prevalence of the mediocre characteristics over the extreme ones. There are then so many traits in common, to combine and to reinforce one another, that they prevail to the exclusion of the rest. All that is common remains, all that is individual tends to disappear.

The first of the composites exhibited on this occasion is made by conveying the images of three separate portraits by means of three separate magic-lanterns upon the same screen. The stands on which the lanterns are mounted have been arranged to allow of nice adjustment. The composite about to be shown is one that strains the powers of the process somewhat too severely, the portraits combined being those of two brothers and their sister, who have not even been photographed in precisely the same attitudes. Nevertheless, the result is seen to be the production of a face, neither male nor female, but more regular and handsome than any of the component portraits, and in which the common family traits are clearly marked. Ghosts of portions of male and female attire, due to the peculiarities of the separate portraits, are seen about and around the composite, but they are not sufficiently vivid to distract the attention. If the number of combined portraits had been large, these ghostly accessories would have become too faint to be visible.

The next step is to compare this portrait of two brothers and their sister which has been composed by optical means before the eyes of the audience, and concerning the truthfulness of which there can be no doubt, with a photographic composite of the same group. The latter is now placed in a fourth magic-lantern with a brighter light behind it, and its image is thrown on the screen by the side of the composite produced by direct optical superposition. It will be observed that the two processes lead to almost exactly the same result, and therefore the fairness of the photographic process may be taken for granted. However, two other comparisons will be made for the sake of verification, namely, between the optical and photographic composites of two children, and again between those of two Roman contadini.

The composite portraits that will next be exhibited are made by the photographic process, and it will now be understood that they are truly composite, notwithstanding their definition and apparent individuality. Attention is, however, first directed to a convenient instrument not more than 18 inches in length, which is, in fact, a photographic camera with six converging lenses and an attached screen, on which six pictures can be adjusted and brilliantly illuminated by artificial light. The effect of their optical combination can thus be easily studied; any errors of adjustment can be rectified, and the composite may be photographed at once.

It must not be supposed that any one of the components fails to leave its due trace in the photographic composite, much less in the optical one. In order to allay misgivings on the subject, a small apparatus is laid on the table together with some of the results obtained by it. It is a cardboard frame, with a spring shutter closing an aperture of the size of a wafer, that springs open on the pressure of a finger, and shuts again as suddenly when the pressure is withdrawn. A chronograph is held in the other hand, whose index begins to travel the moment the finger presses a spring, and stops instantly on lifting the finger. The two instruments are worked simultaneously; the chronograph checking the time allowed for each exposure and summing all the times. It appears from several trials that the effect of 1000 brief exposures is practically identical with that of a single exposure of 1000 times the duration of any one of them. Therefore each of a thousand components leaves its due photographic trace on the composite, though it is far too faint to be visible unless reinforced by many similar traces.

The composites now to be exhibited are made from coins or medals, and in most instances the aim has been to obtain the best likeness attainable of historical personages, by combining various portraits of them taken at different periods of their lives, and so to elicit the traits that are common to each series. A few of the individual portraits are placed in the same slide with each composite to give a better idea of the character of these blended representatives. Those that are shown are (1) Alexander the Great, from six components; (2) Antiochus, King of Syria, from six; (3) Demetrius Poliorcetes, from six; (4) Cleopatra, from five. Here the composite is as usual better looking than any of the components, none of which, however, give any indication of her reputed beauty; in fact, her features are not only plain, but to an ordinary English taste are simply hideous. (5) Nero, from eleven; (6) A combination of five different Greek female faces; and (7) A singularly beautiful combination of the faces of six different Roman ladies, forming a charming ideal profile.

My cordial acknowledgment is due to Mr. R. Stuart Poole, the learned curator of the coins and gems in the British Museum, for his kind selection of the most suitable medals, and for procuring casts of them for me for the present purpose. These casts were, with one exception, all photographed to a uniform size of four-tenths of an inch between the pupils of the eyes and the division between the lips, which experience shows to be the most convenient size on the whole to work with, regard being paid to many considerations not worth while to specify in detail. When it was necessary the photograph was reversed. These photographs were made by Mr. H. Reynolds; I then adjusted and prepared them for taking the photographic composite.

The next series to be exhibited consists of composites taken from the portraits of criminals convicted of murder, manslaughter, or crimes accompanied by violence. There is much interest in the fact that two types of features are found much more frequently among these than among the population at large. In one, the features are broad and massive, like those of Henry VIII., but with a much smaller brain. The other, of which five composites are exhibited, each deduced from a number of different individuals, varying four to nine, is a face that is weak and certainly not a common English face. Three of these composites, though taken from entirely different sets of individuals, are as alike as brothers, and it is found on optically combining any three out of the five composites, that is on combining almost any considerable number of the individuals, the result is closely the same. The combination of the three composites just alluded to will now be effected by means of the three converging magic-lanterns, and the result may be accepted as generic in respect of this particular type of criminals.

The process of composite portraiture is one of pictorial statistics. It is a familiar fact that the average height of even a dozen men of the same race, taken at hazard, varies so little, that for ordinary statistical purposes it may be considered constant. The same may be said of the measurement of every separate feature and limb, and of every tint, whether of skin, hair, or eyes. Consequently a pictorial combination of any one of these separate traits would lead to results no less constant than the statistical averages. In a portrait, there is another factor to be considered besides the measurement of the separate traits, namely, their relative position; but this, too, in a sufficiently large group, would necessarily have a statistical constancy. As a matter of observation, the resemblance between persons of the same "genus" (in the sense of "generic," as already explained) is sufficiently great to admit of making good pictorial composites out of even small groups, as has been abundantly shown.

Composite pictures, are, however, much more than averages; they are rather the equivalents of those large statistical tables whose totals, divided by the number of cases, and entered in the bottom line, are the averages. They are real generalisations, because they include the whole of the material under consideration. The blur of their outlines, which is never great in truly generic composites, except in unimportant details, measures the tendency of individuals to deviate from the central type. My argument is, that the generic images that arise before the mind's eye, and the general impressions which are faint and faulty editions of them, are the analogues of these composite pictures which we have the advantage of examining at leisure, and whose peculiarities and character we can investigate, and from which we may draw conclusions that shall throw much light on the nature of certain mental processes which are too mobile and evanescent to be directly dealt with.

III. COMPOSITE PORTRAITURE.

[Read before the Photographic Society, 24th June, 1881.]

I propose to draw attention to-night to the results of recent experiments and considerable improvements in a process of which I published the principles three years ago, and which I have subsequently exhibited more than once.

I have shown that, if we have the portraits of two or more different persons, taken in the same aspect and under the same conditions of light and shade, and that if we put them into different optical lanterns converging on the same screen and carefully adjust them--first, so as to bring them to the same scale, and, secondly, so as to superpose them as accurately as the conditions admit--then the different faces will blend surprisingly well into a single countenance. If they are not very dissimilar, the blended result will always have a curious air of individuality, and will be unexpectedly well defined; it will exactly resemble none of its components, but it will have a sort of family likeness to all of them, and it will be an ideal and an averaged portrait. I have also shown that the image on the screen might be photographed then and there, or that the same result may be much more easily obtained by a method of successive photography, and I have exhibited many specimens made on this principle. Photo-lithographs of some of these will be found in the Proceedings of the Royal Institution, as illustrations of a lecture I gave there "On Generic Images" in 1879.

The method I now use is much better than those previously described; it leads to more accurate results, and is easier to manage. I will exhibit and explain the apparatus as it stands, and will indicate some improvements as I go on. The apparatus is here. I use it by gaslight, and employ rapid dry plates, which, however, under the conditions of a particularly small aperture and the character of the light, require sixty seconds of total exposure. The apparatus is 4 feet long and 6-1/2 inches broad; it lies with its side along the edge of the table at which I sit, and it is sloped towards me, so that, by bending my neck slightly, I can bring my eye to an eye-hole, where I watch the effect of the adjustments which my hands are free to make. The entire management of the whole of these is within an easy arm's length, and I complete the process without shifting my seat.

The apparatus consists of three parts, A, B, and C. A is rigidly fixed; it contains the dark slide and the contrivances by which the position of the image can be viewed; the eye-hole, e, already mentioned, being part of A. B is a travelling carriage that holds the lens, and is connected by bellows-work with A. In my apparatus it is pushed out and in, and clamped where desired, but it ought to be moved altogether by pinion and rack-work.[24] The lens I use is a I B Dallmeyer. Its focal length is appropriate to the size of the instrument, and I find great convenience in a lens of wide aperture when making the adjustments, as I then require plenty of light; but, as to the photography, the smaller the aperture the better. The hole in my stop is only two-tenths of an inch in diameter, and I believe one-tenth would be more suitable.

[Footnote 24: I have since had a more substantial instrument made with these and similar improvements.]

Diagram Showing the Essential Parts

A The body of the camera, which is fixed.

B Lens on a carriage, which can be moved to and fro.

C Frame for the transparency, on a carriage that also supports the lantern; the whole can be moved to and fro.>

r The reflector inside the camera.

m The arm outside the camera attached to the axis of the reflector; by moving it, the reflector can be moved up or down.

g A ground-glass screen on the roof, which receives the image when the reflector is turned down, as in the diagram.

e The eye-hole through which the image is viewed on g; a thin piece of glass immediately below e, reflects the illuminated fiducial lines in the transparency at f, and gives them the appearance of lying upon g,--the distances f e and g e being made equal, the angle f e g being made a right angle, and the plane of the thin piece of glass being made to bisect f e g.

f Framework, adjustable, holding the transparency with the fiducial lines on it.

t Framework, adjustable, holding the transparency of the portrait.

C is a travelling carriage that supports the portraits in turn, from which the composite has to be made. I work directly from the original negatives with transmitted light; but prints can be used with light falling on their face.